Belgium’s Royal Christmas Fight

The Christmas break: a time of goodwill, peace and forgiveness – mostly. In Belgian politics, however, there’s enough bitterness, point-scoring and resentment to fill 365 days a year. The latest flashpoint: The King’s speech.

Albert II, King of the Belgians, is used to taking a bigger role in his country’s politics than your average hereditary monarch. He made numerous interventions to break the stalemate after the 2010 elections, talking, in private to politicians of every stripe until they came up with the six-party coalition headed by French-speaking socialist Elio di Rupo, known as the ‘butterfly coalition’ after the prime minister’s trademark bow-tie (called a noeud papillon in French).

“In the turbulent times in which we live, let us be vigilant and lucid in the face of populist discourse. They are always seeking a new scapegoat for the crisis, whether from abroad or the citizens of another part of their country,” his Majesty said. “The crisis of the 1930s and the populist reaction of this era must not be forgotten. We saw the harm this did to our democracies.”

Noting that such movements exist in many European countries as well as Belgium, it’s hard not to read the King’s remarks as a little dig at the N-VA, the Flemish separatist party which, like peers in Scotland and Catalonia, wants independence from Wallonia, the poorer Southern region. Consistently winning the most votes in the North of the country, the party’s charismatic leader, Bart de Wever, was quick to rise to the bait.

“Albert II isn’t fulfilling his role correctly, he has chosen to pursue a divisive Kingship,” Mr. De Wever wrote in an opinion piece for newspaper De Standaard. “His Christmas message was the sad pinnacle of this.”